The Androscoggin River played a key role in the development of New Hampshire's remote North Country. Logging was, and still is, a major industry. During the first half of the 1900's when the demands for timber increased for lumber and paper, the river made the movement of logs from the northern part of the state possible and economical. Pulpwood cut in the northern forests was floated to processing mills in Berlin and Gorham. Men known as river drivers worked from large boats called bateau to direct the logs on the river. They used tools called canthooks and pike poles. Dynamite was occasionally used to break up any log jams that formed. By the mid 1950s, expansion of the road system promoted the logging industry to begin transporting the logs by truck.

The Androscoggin River is joined by the Magalloway River, which originates in Maine, almost immediately after flowing from its source at Umbagog Lake. As it flows southward, it is joined near Gorham by the Moose and Peabody Rivers whose headwaters are high on the mountains of the Presidential Range. The river winds east from Gorham into Maine, and merges with the Kennebec River just before it empties into the Atlantic Ocean in Bath.

The name Androscoggin is derived from a Native American word for spear fishing. The northern headwaters and the tributaries of the Androscoggin are noted for their salmon and trout fishing.